Monday, April 17, 2017

Restaurant Review -- El Mason de Pepe, Key West, Florida

Another restaurant we enjoyed in Key West was El Meson de Pepe, which is at 410 Wall Street off of Mallory Square. It is a Cuban restaurant, and it has a cool miniature museum about Cubans in Key West inside. We have grown fond of the delightful food at Maryville's Aroma Cafe, which is our local Cuban restaurant, so we thought we'd try some Cuban food from a little closer to the source.

The restaurant is housed in this building, known as Casa Cayo Hueso. Cayo Hueso is the Spanish name for Key West, and it means bone island because of Native American remains Spaniards discovered there when they first found the island.

We ordered the Completa de Caballo Grande, which is a sampler platter that includes Lechon Asado, Ropa Vieja and Picadillo. The Lechon Asado is a Cuban pulled pork dish seasoned with what the menu called a cumin-mojo sauce (Mojo, Baby!), and Picadillo is ground beef seasoned with onion, garlic, olives, cumin, capers, bay and oregano. Ropa Vieja means "old clothes" and is shredded skirt steak. It was all very good, and Sherry and I got full sharing the platter while Sarah just had some pulled pork and rice. Our meal was about $62.00 including tax and tip.